Some scouts say Tebow's NFL ability questionable

Thursday

Jan 28, 2010 at 4:03 PM

Publicly, NFL people at the Senior Bowl will say Tim Tebow is competitive. He's trying. But privately, another tune is being sung about the Heisman Trophy-winning, two-time national champion quarterback.

By Albert R. BreerThe Boston Globe

MOBILE, Ala. — Tim Tebow is wearing a yellow No. 15 practice jersey this week at the Senior Bowl.He has his orange Florida helmet and a pair of white Gator pants with the Nike swoosh torn off to accommodate game sponsor Under Armour. He’s competitive. He’s trying.Publicly, the NFL people here will say that’s about as much as is certain about this accomplished yet wildly enigmatic pro prospect.But privately, another tune is being sung about the Heisman Trophy-winning, two-time national champion quarterback.The NFL people seem to see what everyone else in Mobile has seen, and it is not what the legions of Gator fans who’ve attended these workouts want to hear.” I actually don’t think he’s that hard to evaluate at all,” said a high-ranking college scout for an NFC team. ” To me, he’s just not a very good quarterback prospect. Now, if you want to rework his mechanics, his release, try to improve his accuracy, then you see a guy with this big frame that can throw.” He’s a big-time project, no doubt.” Tebow has been, without question, the belle of this week’s ball.The South team’s first practice, on Monday at a high school stadium in nearby Fairhope, was open to the public, and the public came in droves. Nearly 400 miles from Florida’s Gainesville campus, a majority of the crowd was wearing blue and orange, and a good number of those had Tebow’s ‘’15” splashed across those colors.On Tuesday, he posed for an ad campaign on the field, as his teammates milled about in front of pockets of scouts and coaches.On Wednesday, a blimp appeared in the sky high over Ladd-Peebles Stadium. Remember, this was a practice. For a college all-star game.To be fair, Tebow didn’t ask for any of this. And by all accounts, he has handled it well. Word is, the Miami Dolphins coaches leading the South team like his work ethic, his willingness to take coaching, and his ability to learn.But there’s very little question that the hype accompanying one of the greatest college players of the modern era has been followed with the loud thud of a 6-foot-2-inch, 236-pound beast falling on his face. The belle of the ball? Consider the party over.Again, how fair this is can be questioned, since Tebow played almost exclusively out of the shotgun, and throwing the ball has been just a fraction of his game as a Gator. Then again, all of that is why the obvious is so clear: Right now, the kid is not a pro quarterback.” With a guy like him, you can’t say he can’t do it,” said an AFC college scouting director. ” He’s got a strong arm, he can throw a spiral. But he’s going to take time. With his mechanics, with his long delivery, he’ll have to shorten things up. He may never be a top quarterback, but you don’t know.” With his type of character and the way he approaches things, you can’t put it out of the question. But it will take some time.” The smart money: It never happens, and that’s because Tebow has the kind of problems that usually don’t get fixed.Byron Leftwich was selected in the first round despite a long delivery that telegraphed where he was going with the ball. Kyle Boller went in the first round, as well, even though he had issues with accuracy. Alex Smith was picked atop the entire draft, based largely on projection because he’d played as a dual-threat quarterback in Urban Meyer’s spread and wasn’t used to taking drops and operating in a conventional pocket with more than half-field reads.Leftwich and Boller are now journeyman backups, and Smith is trying to save a flailing career in San Francisco. Each quarterback’s primary problem has been too much to fix, which isn’t to say such problems can never be rectified. That said, you have to consider this: Tebow has all of the above issues.” He can’t play quarterback in the NFL, I’m convinced of it,” ESPN director of college scouting Todd McShay said. ” From his delivery to his footwork to his accuracy, you have to absolutely strip him down and build him back up. And it’s too late.” So say that he doesn’t make it. Then what?One veteran NFL personnel man said, ” Then, he’s out of the league.” But not everyone agrees. The AFC scouting director compared him, athletically, to former Titans Pro Bowl tight end Frank Wycheck. An AFC college scout brought up ex-Tampa fullback Mike Alstott. McShay said he was ‘’the best short-yardage runner in college football.” What this guy isn’t, however, is Kordell Stewart or Pat White.” If you put him at another position, he wouldn’t be an elite athlete,” the AFC college scouting director said. ” As a quarterback, he’s a really good athlete and strong and physical. But if you say, ’OK, how’s he compared to the running backs out there?’ He’s not more athletic than any of the running backs out there and he’s certainly not more athletic than a lot of great tight ends.” Then he suggested that Tebow would be excellent on punt coverage.The first part of the consensus among scouts was that his drafting team should have a plan in place to use him in special packages — as Stewart was used in Pittsburgh initially — to buy him time to develop at quarterback. Tebow, for his part, said he’d be fine with such an arrangement.” If I can’t work out as a quarterback, or while I’m waiting, then yes, I would help the team any way I could,” he said. ” ((Working at other positions)) is something I haven’t really thought about. I’m not going to train to be ready for that. But if I go out there, hopefully I’ll be enough of an athlete so I won’t look too dumb out there.” The problem for Tebow is the second part of the consensus, which came even as he was making progress in Day 3 of practice. And that is that, eventually, the team that gets him will be moving him to an H-back type of position.” He’s a really good football player” is what the scouting director emphasized.Anyone who watched him in college knows that, and because of his passion for the game and dogged, blue-collar approach, most people here couched everything by saying how hard it is to bet against Tebow.But based on what we’ve seen so far, it’s even tougher to bet on him.

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